Black Panther Party founded | African American Registry Black Panther Party founded Date: Sat, 1966-10-15 On this date in 1966, the Black Panther Party (BPP) was founded. It was a Black political organization; originally known as the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. The BPP originated in Oakland, California, by founders Huey Newton and Bobby Seale. The Original six members of the Black Panthers included Elbert “Big Man” Howard, Sherman Forte, Reggie Forte, Little Bobby Hutton, and Newton and Seale. They adopted the Black Panther symbol from an independent political party established the previous year by Black residents of Lowndes County, Alabama. The Panthers also supported the Black Power movement, which stressed racial dignity and self-reliance. The Party established patrols in Black communities to monitor police activities and protect the residents from police brutality. The BPP combined elements of socialism and Black Nationalism. , it promoted the development of strong Black-controlled institutions, calling for Blacks to work together to protect their rights and to improve their economic and social conditions. The Panthers also emphasized class unity, criticizing the Black middle class for acting against the interests of other, less fortunate Blacks.

They welcomed alliances with White activists, such as the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and later the Weathermen, because they believed that all revolutionaries who wanted to change U. S. society should unite across racial lines. The BPP grew throughout the late 1960s, and eventually had chapters all around the country. As racial tension increased around the country, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) blamed the Black Panthers for riots and other incidents of violence. The bureau launched a program called COINTELPRO (short for counterintelligence program) designed to disrupt efforts to unify Black militant groups such as SNCC and the Panthers. In December 1969, two Chicago leaders of the party, Fred Hampton, and Mark Clark, were killed in a police raid. By the end of the decade, according to the party's attorney, 28 Panthers had been killed and many other members either were in jail or had been forced to leave the United States to avoid arrest. After Newton's conviction was reversed, he called for developing survival programs in Black communities to build support for the BPP.

These programs provided free breakfasts for children, established free medical clinics, helped the homeless find housing, and gave away free clothing and food. This attempt to shift the direction of the party did not prevent further external attacks and internal conflicts, and the party continued to decline as a political force. After the departure of Newton and Seale, the party's new leader, Elaine Brown, continued to emphasize community service programs. These programs were frequently organized and run by Black women, who were a majority in the party by the mid-1970s. By the end of the 1970s, weakened by external attacks, legal problems, and internal divisions, the Panthers were no longer a political force. Throughout their decline, several women sustained the organizations community programs until 1981, when the Oakland-based program closed. In 1997. The Black Panther Party Research Project (BPPRP) was created to locate sources and develop finding aids to assist researchers and the general public with uncovering information about the BPP, one of the twentieth century's most controversial, yet least researched organizations. Reference: The Encyclopedia Britannica, Fifteenth Edition. Copyright 1996 Encyclopedia Britannica Inc.

ISBN 0-85229-633-0 Copyright 1996, World Book, Inc. ISBN 0-7166-0096-X Black Panther Party Rules of the Black Panther Party Original six Black Panthers (November, 1966) Top left to right: Elbert "Big Man" Howard; Huey P. Newton (Defense Minister), Sherman Forte, Bobby Seale (Chairman). Bottom: Reggie Forte and Little Bobby Hutton (Treasurer). Black Panther Theory: The practices of the late Malcolm X were deeply rooted in the theoretical foundations of the Black Panther Party. Malcolm had represented both a militant revolutionary, with the dignity and self-respect to stand up and fight to win equality for all oppressed minorities; while also being an outstanding role model, someone who sought to bring about positive social services; something the Black Panthers would take to new heights. The Panthers followed Malcolm's belief of international working class unity across the spectrum of color and gender, and thus united with various minority and white revolutionary groups.

From the tenets of Maoism they set the role of their Party as the vanguard of the revolution and worked to establish a united front, while from Marxism they addressed the capitalist economic system, embraced the theory of dialectical materialism , and represented the need for all workers to forcefully take over the means of production. Black Panther History: On April 25th, 1967, the first issue of The Black Panther, the party's official news organ, goes into distribution. In the following month, the party marches on the California state capital fully armed, in protest of the state's attempt to outlaw carrying loaded weapons in public. Bobby Seale reads a statement of protest; while the police respond by immediately arresting him and all 30 armed Panthers. This early act of political repression kindles the fires to the burning resistance movement in the United States; soon initiating minority workers to take up arms and form new Panther chapters outside the state. The Black Panther: [off-site link] Articles from 1968-69 In October of 1967, the police arrest the Defense Minister of the Panthers, Huey Newton, for killing an Oakland cop.

Panther Eldridge Cleaver begins the movement to "Free Huey", a struggle the Panthers would devote a great deal of their attention to in the coming years, while the party spreads its roots further into the political spectrum, forming coalitions with various revolutionary parties. Stokely Carmichael, the former chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and a nationally known proponent of Black Power, is recruited into the party through this struggle, and soon becomes the party's Prime Minister in February, 1968. Carmichael is adamantly against allowing whites into the black liberation movement, explaining whites cannot relate to the black experience and have an intimidating effect on blacks; a position that stirs opposition within the Panthers. Carmichael explains: "Whites who come into the black community with ideas of change seem to want to absolve the power structure of its responsibility for what it is doing, and say that change can only come through black unity, which is the worst kind of paternalism..... If we are to proceed toward true liberation, we must cut ourselves off from white people.....

[otherwise] we will find ourselves entwined in the tentacles of the white power complex that controls this country.” Stokely Carmichael: The Basis of Black Power In the beginning of 1968, after selling Mao's Red Book to university students in order to buy shotguns, the Party makes the book required reading. Meanwhile, the FBI, under J. Edgar Hoover, begins a program called COINTELPRO (counterintelligence program) to break up the spreading unity of revolutionary groups that had begun solidifying through the work and examaple of the Panthers  the Peace and Freedom Party, Brown Berets, Students for a Democratic Society, the SNCC, SCLC, Poor People's March, Cesar Chavez and others in the farm labor movement, the American Indian Movement, Young Puerto Rican Brothers, the Young Lords and many others. To destroy the party, the FBI begins with a program of surgical assassinations  killing leading members of the party who they know cannot be otherwise subverted. Following these mass killings would be a series of arrests, followed by a program of psychological warfare, designed to split the party both politically and morally through the use of espionage, provocatures, and chemical warfare.

Warning to So-Called “Paper Panthers” , The Black Panther, September 28, 1968 Watered down examples of FBI investigations, provided by the FBI: [off-site links] Cesar Chavez and United Farm Workers Communist Affiliations in 1965 (2,021 pages) U.S. Police Terror and Repression On April 6, 1968, in West Oakland, Bobby Hutton, 17 years old, is shot dead by Oakland police. In a 90 minute gun battle, an unarmed Bobby Hutton is shot ten times dead, after his house is set ablaze and he is forced to run out into a fire of bullets. Just two days earlier, Martin Luther King is assasinated, after he had begun rethinking his own doctrines of non-violence, and started to build ties with radical unions. Two months later on the day of Bobby's death, Robert Kennedy, widely recognised in the minority commmunity as one of the only politicians in the US "sympathetic" to the civil rights movement, is also assasinated. In January, 1969, The first Panther's Free Breakfast for School Children Program is initiated at St.

Augustine's Church in Oakland. By the end of the year, the Panthers set up kitchens in cities across the nation, feeding over 10,000 children every day before they went to school. The Black Panther: To Feed Our Children A few months later, J. Edgar Hoover publicly states that the Panthers are the "greatest threat to the internal security of the country." In Chicago, the outstanding leader of the Panthers local, Fred Hampton, leads five different breakfast programs on the West Side, helps create a free medical center, and initiates a door to door program of health services which test for sickle cell anemia, and encourage blood drives for the Cook County Hospital. The Chicago party also begins reaching out to local gangs to clean up their acts, get them away from crime and bring them into the class war . The Parties efforts meet wide success, and Hampton's audiences and organised contingent grow by the day. On December 4th, at 4:00 a.m. in the morning, thanks to information from an FBI informant , Chicago police raid the Panthers' Chicago apartment, murdering Fred Hampton while he sleeps in bed.

He is shot twice in the head, once in the arm and shoulder; while three other people sleeping in the same bed escape unharmed. Mark Clark, sleeping in the living room chair, is also murdered while asleep. Hampton's wife, carrying child for 8 months, is also shot, but survives. Four panthers sleeping in the apartment are wounded, while one other escapes injury . Fred Hampton was 21 years old when he was executed, Mark was 17 years old. According to the findings of the federal grand jury, Ninety bullets were fired inside the apartment. 1 came from a Panther  Mark  who slept with a shotgun in his hand. All surviving Panther members were arrested for "attempted murder of the police and aggravated assault". Not a single cop spent a moment in jail for the executions. Fred Hampton: I am ... a Revolutionary In the summer of 1969, the alliance between the Panthers and SNCC begins ripping apart. One of the main points of dispute is the inclusion of whites in the struggle for minority liberation, a dispute which is pushed into an open gun fight at the University of California in Los Angeles against the group US, led by Maulana Karenga, which leaves two Panthers dead.

In September, in the government's court house, Huey Newton is convicted of voluntary manslaughter and sentenced to 2 to 15 years in prison; by 1970 the conviction is appealed and overturned on procedural errors. On November 24, 1968, Kathleen and Eldridge Cleaver flee the US, visit Cuba and Paris, and eventually settle in Algeria. Earlier in the year Cleaver published his famous book Soul on Ice. By the end of the year, the party has swelled from 400 members to over 5,000 members in 45 chapters and branches, with a newspaper circulation of 100,000 copies. In 1969 Seale is indicted in Chicago for protesting during the Democratic national convention of last year. The court refuses to allow Seale to choose a lawyer. As Seale repeatedly stands up during the show trial insisting that he is being denied his constitutional right to counsel, the judge orders him bound and gagged. He is convicted on 16 counts of contempt and sentenced to four years in prison.

While in jail he would be charged again for killing a cop in years past, a trial that would end in 1971 with a hung jury. In March, 1970, Bobby Seale publishes Seize The Time while still being held in prison, the story of the Panthers and Huey Newton. On April 2, 1970, in New York, 21 Panthers are charged with plotting to assassinate police officers and blow up buildings. On May 22nd, Eight members, including Ericka Huggins, are arrested on a variety of conspiracy and murder charges in New Haven, Connecticut. Meanwhile, Chief of staff David Hilliard is on trial for threatening President Richard Nixon. The party does little to separate its legal and illegal aspects, and is thus always and everywhere under attack by the government. In 1971, the Panther's newspaper circulation reaches 250,000. On Huey Newton's release from prison, he devotes more effort to further develop the Panther's socialist survival programs in black communities; programs that provided free breakfasts for children, established free medical clinics, helped the homeless find housing, and gave away free clothing and food.

FBI forgery, provacation, & chemical war In March, 1970, the FBI begins to soe seeds of factionalism in the Black Panthers, in part by forging letters to members. Eldridge Cleaver is one of their main targets  living in exile in Algiers  they gradually convince him with a steady stream of misinformation that the BPP leadership is trying to remove him from power. Cleaver recieved stacks of forgered FBI letters from supposed party members, criticising Netwon's leadership, and asking for Cleaver to take control. An example of such a forged letter, written using the name of Connie Matthews, Newton's personal secretary: I know you have not been told what has been happening lately.... Things around headquarters are dreadfully disorganized with the comrade commander not making proper decisions. The newspaper is in a shambles. No one knows who is in charge. The foreign department gets no support. Brothers and sisters are accused of all sorts of things... I am disturbed because I, myself, do not know which way to turn.... If only you were here to inject some strength into the movement, or to give some advice.

One of two steps must be taken soon and both are drastic. We must either get rid of the supreme commander or get rid of the disloyal members... Huey is really all we have right now and we can't let him down, reglardless of how poorly he is acting, unless you feel otherwise. Cleaver receives similarly forged letters across the spectrum, from groups outside the Panthers, to Panthers themselves, from rank and file members to Elbert "Big Man" Howard, editor of the Black Panther. The split comes when Newton goes onto a T.V. talk show for an interview, with Cleaver on the phone in Algiers. Cleaver expresses his absolute disdain for what has happened to the party, demands that David Hilliard (Chief of Staff) be removed, and even attacks the breakfast program as reformist. Cleaver is expelled from the Central Committee, and starts up his own Black Liberation Army. In 1973, Seale runs for mayor of Oakland. Though he receives 40 percent of the vote, he is defeated. The destroyed remnants of the party leadership With such great struggles, seeing the party being ripped apart by factions and internal hatred, Huey, like many members, becomes disillusioned.

He no longer wants to lead the party, though so many expect and demand otherwise, while he spins into a spiral of self-doubt. He becomes heavily dependent on cocaine, heroin, and others. It is not clear this was his own doing, and very probable the work of the FBI. Huey remarked in one of his public speeches in the 1980s, where he would often have spurts of his brilliant clarity but then become entirely incoherent and rambling, that he was killing himself by reactionary suicide, through the vices of drug addiction. On August 22, 1989, Newton is shot dead on the streets of Oakland in a drug dispute. Capitalism Plus Dope Equals Genocide Bobby Seale resigns from the party; while Elaine Brown takes the lead in continuing the Panther community programs. In the fall of 1975, Eldridge and Kathleen Cleaver return from exile as born-again Christians. In 1979, all charges against Cleaver are dropped after he bargains with the state and pleads guilty to assault in a 1968 shoot out with the cops. He is put on five years probation.

In the dimming years of his life, Cleaver assimilates a political outlook similar to Martin Luther King, engages in various business ventures, and becomes heavily addicted to cocaine. By the beginning of the 1980s, attacks on the party and internal degradation and divisions, cause the party to fall apart. The leadership of the party had been absolutely smashed; its rank and file constantly terrorized by the police. Many remaining Panthers were hunted down and killed in the following years, imprisoned on trumped charges ( Mumia Abu-Jamal , Sundiata Acoli , among many others), or forced to flee the United States ( Assata Shakur , and others). As Cleaver would later explain in an interview a year before his death: "As it was [the U.S. government] chopped off the head [of the Black liberation movement] and left the body there armed. That's why all these young bloods are out there now, they've got the rhetoric but are without the political direction... and they've got the guns." I pledge allegiance to my Black People. I pledge to develop my mind and body to the greatest extent possible.

I will learn all that I can in order to give my best to my People in their struggle for liberation. I will keep myself physically fit, building a strong body free from drugs and other substances which weaken me and make me less capable of protecting myself, my family and my Black brothers and sisters. I will unselfishly share my knowledge and understanding with them in order to bring about change more quickly. I will discipline myself to direct my energies thoughtfully and constructively rather than wasting them in idle hatred. I will train myself never to hurt or allow others to harm my Black brothers and sisters for I recognize that we need every Black Man, Woman, and Child to be physically, mentally and psychologically strong. These principles I pledge to practice daily and to teach them to others in order to unite my People. The Black Panther, October 26, 1968 by Shirley Williams Links: Angela Davis: PBS Interview in 1998 : "We can't think narrowly about movements for black liberation and we can't necessarily see this class division as simply a product or a certain strategy that black movements have developed for liberation....

We have to look at for example the increasing globalization of capital, the whole system of transitional capitalism now which has had an impact on black populations  that has for example eradicated large numbers of jobs that black people traditionally have been able to count upon and created communities where the tax base is lost now as a result of corporations moving to the third world in order to discover cheap labor." UC Berkeley Library. Social Activism Sound Recording Project: The Black Panther Party Interview of Eldrige Cleaver , a year before his death, now using the words of Martin Luther King, in 1997: "I think that it is possible for the capitalist system to have a program of full employment, but we have a spiritual and moral problem in America. Our problem is not economic or political, it is that we do not care about each other..... Note: This overview lacks a focus on the positive aspects of the Black Panthers and their work because of the great difficulty in finding anything but negative information against the Party and its struggles. Constructive sources of information would be greatly appreciated, please contact Brian Baggins . Citation Information: Baggins, Brian. History of the Black Panther Party.

Marxists Internet Archive (marx.org), copyleft 2002. Retrieved on (today's date). URL: Black Panther Party History: Huey Newton, Bobby Seale Founded Black Panther Party On This Day In 1966 | News One Huey Newton, Bobby Seale Founded Black Panther Party On This Day In 1966 Leave a comment 168 reads As one of the most-storied African-American groups during the turbulent late 1960s, the Black Panther Party For Self Defense (or the Black Panther Party) stood out not only for their militant appearance but also for their work in impoverished neighborhoods as well. As students at Oakland’s Merritt College (formerly Oakland City College), Huey Newton (pictured right) and Bobby Seale (pictured) were inspired by the teachings of Malcolm X, who was slain just a year before they began the Party. Newton and Seale, growing tired of police brutality and other forms injustice against Blacks, formed the Black Panther Party on this day in 1966.

SEE ALSO: Iconic Comedian, Entertainer Redd Foxx Passed Away On This Date In 1991 Fashioning themselves as left-wing revolutionaries, the Black Panthers felt that Blacks in America needed protection against police, underscoring their emphasis on self-defense. Since Newton was a reader of Karl Marx, Frantz Fanon, Vladimir Lenin, and other revolutionary figures, the Black Panthers taught socialist and Marxist ideology to its members. Newton maintained the title of defense minister while Seale was recognized as the group’s chairman. Along with forming the party, the group’s landmark “Ten Point Program” was also introduced after being inspired by Stokely Carmichael (aka Kwame Toure) and his activism in Alabama. The Party’s platform called for equal rights for Blacks, a call for jobs for the community, housing, education, and other demands. Party members were also famous for being armed publicly, after Newton learned that a loophole in California law allowed them to bear guns in plain sight as long as they weren’t aimed. The Panthers claimed Oakland as a “territory” with the police being enemies of their land and acted as both a community support system and militia-like force. With racial tensions rising, so did the Panther’s activity.

After first denying his involvement, Newton admitted to the killing of Officer John Frey, which galvanized the Panthers even further. H. Rap Brown (now serving life in prison for the 2000 killing of Georgia officer Ricky Kinchen) and James Forman used the moment to stage a huge “Free Huey” rally months later, calling for violence and the assassination of public officials if their leader was not set free. Newton fled trial and escaped to Cuba but still led the Panthers as much as he could from afar. Beyond their many conflicts with law enforcement officials, the Panthers’ “survival programs” were the stuff of legend. The group provided free food, self-defense training, tutoring, first aid, clothing, drug and alcohol rehab, and many more social programs for those in need. This would land the Party on the radar of the FBI and the insidious “COINTELPRO” program, which then-director J. Edgar Hoover enacted to halt the growth of the group. The FBI infiltrated the inner workings of the Panthers and pitted other similar groups against them, according to documents and personal accounts regarding the matter. The Black Panther Party dealt with criticism of its violent nature, which often overshadowed the group’s good works.

Some members wanted a focus on the socialist aspect, while others wanted to be even more confrontational. The decline of the party was readily apparent in the 1970s, especially in 1974 when Newton appointed Elaine Brown as the Party’s first chairwoman. Watch the history of the Black Panther Party here: The group became more involved in the electoral process from this point on, and more women increased their visibility and involvement as a result. Brown, however, would leave the party after Newton ordered the beating of a female Panther member. The official end of the party was marked by the closing of its sponsored school in 1982, after Newton was discovered embezzling funds from the school to fuel his drug addiction needs. Newton was later fatally wounded by gunshot in 1989 at the age of 47 by a rival Black nationalist group member and drug dealer. The Black Panther Party’s legacy lives on, and while a new version of the group has been erected, they have not enjoyed the same success as their predecessors. Some Panthers have gone on to great careers since their involvement, such as Congressman Bobby Rush; singer Chaka Khan; and Father to superstar rapper Kanye West, psychologist Ray West.

No matter what stories have been told about the Black Panther Party, the group’s legendary ascent and unfortunate demise still stands as an important piece in our history. SEE ALSO: Black Panthers Encyclopedia > History > United States, Canada, and Greenland > U.S. History Black Panthers Black Panthers, U.S. African-American militant party, founded (1966) in Oakland, Calif., by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale. Originally aimed at armed self-defense against the local police, the party grew to espouse violent revolution as the only means of achieving black liberation. The Black Panthers called on African Americans to arm themselves for the liberation struggle. In the late 1960s party members became involved in a series of violent confrontations with the police (resulting in deaths on both sides) and in a series of court cases, some resulting from direct shoot-outs with the police and some from independent charges. Among the most notable of the trials was that of Huey Newton for killing a policeman in 1967, which resulted in three mistrials, the last in 1971.

Bobby Seale, one of the "Chicago Eight" convicted of conspiracy to violently disrupt the Democratic National Convention of 1968 (later overturned), was a codefendant in a Connecticut case charging murder of an alleged informer on the party. He was acquitted in 1971. A third major trial was of 13 Panthers in New York City accused of conspiring to bomb public places. They were also acquitted in 1971. The results of these trials were taken by many observers as confirmation of their suspicions that the Black Panthers were being subjected to extreme police harassment. Another incident that supported this view was the killing in a raid by Chicago police of Illinois party leader Fred Hampton and another Panther in 1969; review of this incident revealed that the two Panthers had been shot in their beds without any provocation. While controversy raged over the civil liberties issue, the Panthers themselves were riven with internal disputes. A major split took place, with Newton and Seale (who in 1972 announced their intention of abandoning violent methods) on the one side and Eldridge Cleaver (formerly the chief publicist for the party, who continued to preach violent revolution) on the other.

Cleaver headed the so-called international headquarters of the party (until 1973) in Algeria. In 1974 both Seale and Newton left the party; the former resigned, and the latter fled to Cuba to avoid drug charges. During the late 1970s the party gradually lost most of its influence, ceasing to be an important force within the black community. The New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, founded in Dallas, Tex., in 1989, is not related to the old group. See H. Pearson, The Shadow of the Panther: Huey Newton and the Price of Black Power in America (1994); J. Bloom and W. E. Martin, Jr., Black against Empire: The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party (2013). The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. See more Encyclopedia articles on: U.S.

History Black Panther Party | American organization | Britannica.com American organization Alternative Titles: Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, Panther Party Related Topics Mumia Abu-Jamal Black Panther Party, original name Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, African American revolutionary party, founded in 1966 in Oakland , California, by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale . The party’s original purpose was to patrol African American neighbourhoods to protect residents from acts of police brutality. The Panthers eventually developed into a Marxist revolutionary group that called for the arming of all African Americans , the exemption of African Americans from the draft and from all sanctions of so-called white America, the release of all African Americans from jail, and the payment of compensation to African Americans for centuries of exploitation by white Americans. At its peak in the late 1960s, Panther membership exceeded 2,000, and the organization operated chapters in several major American cities. Black Panther Party national chairman Bobby Seale (left) and defense minister Huey Newton. AP Origin and political program Despite passage of the 1960s civil rights legislation that followed the landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Brown v.

Board of Education of Topeka (1954), African Americans living in cities throughout North America continued to suffer economic and social inequality. Poverty and reduced public services characterized these urban centres, where residents were subject to poor living conditions, joblessness, chronic health problems, violence, and limited means to change their circumstances. Such conditions contributed to urban uprisings in the 1960s (such as those in the Watts district of Los Angeles in 1965 , among others) and to the increased use of police violence as a measure to impose order on cities throughout North America. The Black Panther Party displaying a banner on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, … Prints and Photographs Division/Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (digital file no. LC-USZ62-128087) Black youth giving the Black Power salute outside a "liberation school" run by the Black Panther … Bettmann/Corbis Decembrist It was in this context , and in the wake of the assassination of Malcolm X in 1965, that Merritt Junior College students Huey P.

Newton and Bobby Seale founded the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense on October 15, 1966, in West Oakland (officially “Western Oakland,” a district of the city of Oakland), California. Shortening its name to the Black Panther Party, the organization immediately sought to set itself apart from African American cultural nationalist organizations, such as the Universal Negro Improvement Association and the Nation of Islam , to which it was commonly compared. Although the groups shared certain philosophical positions and tactical features, the Black Panther Party and cultural nationalists differed on a number of basic points. For instance, whereas African American cultural nationalists generally regarded all white people as oppressors, the Black Panther Party distinguished between racist and nonracist whites and allied themselves with progressive members of the latter group. Also, whereas cultural nationalists generally viewed all African Americans as oppressed, the Black Panther Party believed that African American capitalists and elites could and typically did exploit and oppress others, particularly the African American working class. Perhaps most importantly, whereas cultural nationalists placed considerable emphasis on symbolic systems, such as language and imagery, as the means to liberate African Americans, the Black Panther Party believed that such systems, though important, are ineffective in bringing about liberation.

It considered symbols as woefully inadequate to ameliorate the unjust material conditions, such as joblessness, created by capitalism . Huey P. Newton. Bobby Seale. Camera Press/© Archive Photos From the outset, the Black Panther Party outlined a Ten Point Program, not unlike those of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and Nation of Islam, to initiate national African American community survival projects and to forge alliances with progressive white radicals and other organizations of people of colour. A number of positions outlined in the Ten Point Program address a principle stance of the Black Panther Party: economic exploitation is at the root of all oppression in the United States and abroad, and the abolition of capitalism is a precondition of social justice . In the 1960s this socialist economic outlook, informed by a Marxist political philosophy, resonated with other social movements in the United States and in other parts of the world. Therefore, even as the Black Panther Party found allies both within and beyond the borders of North America, the organization also found itself squarely in the crosshairs of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and its counterintelligence program, COINTELPRO. In fact, in 1969 FBI director J.

Edgar Hoover considered the Black Panther Party the greatest threat to national security. Impact and repression Ringling Bros. Folds Its Tent The Black Panther Party came into the national spotlight in May 1967 when a small group of its members, led by its chair, Seale, marched fully armed into the California state legislature in Sacramento . Emboldened by the view that African Americans had a constitutional right to bear arms (based on the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution), the Black Panther Party marched on the body as a protest against the pending Mulford Act. The Black Panther Party viewed the legislation, a gun control bill, as a political maneuver to thwart the organization’s effort to combat police brutality in the Oakland community. The images of gun-toting Black Panthers entering the Capitol were supplemented, later that year, with news of Newton’s arrest after a shoot-out with police in which an officer was killed. With this newfound publicity, the Black Panther Party grew from an Oakland-based organization into an international one with chapters in 48 states in North America and support groups in Japan , China , France, England , Germany , Sweden , Mozambique , South Africa , Zimbabwe, Uruguay , and elsewhere.

USA Facts In addition to challenging police brutality, the Black Panther Party launched more than 35 Survival Programs and provided community help, such as education, tuberculosis testing, legal aid, transportation assistance, ambulance service, and the manufacture and distribution of free shoes to poor people. Of particular note was the Free Breakfast for Children Program (begun in January 1969) that spread to every major American city with a Black Panther Party chapter. The federal government had introduced a similar pilot program in 1966 but, arguably in response to the Panthers’ initiative , extended the program and then made it permanent in 1975—undoubtedly to the chagrin of Hoover. Connect with Britannica Facebook Twitter YouTube Instagram Pinterest Notwithstanding the social services the Black Panther Party provided, the FBI declared the group a communist organization and an enemy of the U.S. government. Hoover had pledged that 1969 would be the last year of the Black Panther Party and devoted the resources of the FBI, through COINTELPRO , toward that end. In a protracted program against the Black Panther Party, COINTELPRO used agent provocateurs, sabotage, misinformation, and lethal force to eviscerate the national organization.

The FBI’s campaign culminated in December 1969 with a five-hour police shoot-out at the Southern California headquarters of the Black Panther Party and an Illinois state police raid in which Chicago Black Panther leader Fred Hampton was killed. The measures employed by the FBI were so extreme that, years later when they were revealed, the director of the agency publicly apologized for “wrongful uses of power.” In the early 1970s radical scholar and activist Angela Davis became widely associated with the Black Panthers, though it seems likely that she never actually became a standing member of the party. Davis did, however, have strong connections with the party and taught political education classes for it. She initially gained notoriety in 1970 when then governor of California Ronald Reagan led the Board of Regents in refusing to renew Davis’s appointment as lecturer in philosophy at the University of California , Los Angeles , because of her politics and her association with communists. At about the same time, Davis became involved in the case of three African American inmates at Soledad Prison who had been accused of murdering a guard.

She became deeply involved with one of the inmates, George Jackson, whose younger brother’s attempt on August 7, 1970, to win Jackson’s release by taking hostages in the Marin county courthouse went violently awry. Four deaths resulted, and when at least one of the guns proved to be registered to Davis, she fled charges of conspiracy , kidnapping, and murder, going underground and entering the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list before being captured some eight weeks later after becoming a cause célèbre for the radical Left. Ultimately she was acquitted of all the charges against her by an all-white jury. Angela Davis, 1974. Editor Picks: Exploring 10 Types of Basketball Movies From the mid-1970s through the ’80s, the activities of the Black Panther Party all but ceased. Although COINTELPRO contributed to its demise , the dissolution of the party’s leadership also contributed to the downfall of the organization. Assata Shakur went into exile in Cuba . Kathleen Cleaver earned a law degree and took an appointment as a professor.

After returning from exile in Cuba, Newton was killed in a drug dispute in August 1989, perishing in an alley in West Oakland, not far from where he and Seale had founded the first Black Panther Party chapter. Eldridge Cleaver designed clothes in the 1970s and ’80s before joining the anticommunist Unification Church en route to becoming a born-again Christian and a registered member of the Republican Party . Eldridge Cleaver (left) and his wife, Kathleen. Camera Press/© Archive Photos Legacy From its founding in 1966, the influence of the Black Panther Party assumed a transnational character that went beyond the creation of support groups for the organization. Activists in Australian urban centres, for example, incorporated the works of Black Panther Party members into their social movements. The oppressed Dalits in India emulated the rhetoric of the Black Panthers, and the representatives of the Vietnamese National Liberation Front , who called themselves Yellow Panthers, also used the organization as a model.

Closer to the United States, the Vanguard Party in the Bahamas closely studied the Black Panther Party, drew on its political philosophy, adopted its use of uniforms and its Ten Point Program, and published the newspaper Vanguard, whose scope and format mirrored the Black Panther Party’s newspaper, Black Panther, to shape its program of activism. Even decades after the founding of the organization, the Black Panther Party survived in the public imagination in the United States as a result of the publication of a number of memoirs by its members and the use of its rhetoric in rap music. In 1990 Milwaukee Alderman Michael McGee, a former Black Panther Party member, sought to resurrect the organization when he formed the Black Panther Militia in response to the neglect of his community by local politicians and business leaders. The militia inspired other chapters and eventually became the New Black Panther Party, under the leadership of community activist Aaron Michaels.

By 1998, Khallid Abdul Muhammad, the former national spokesperson for the Chicago-based Nation of Islam , had assumed the de facto leadership of the organization when he led a group of shotgun- and rifle-toting New Black Panther Party members to Jasper, Texas , in the wake of the murder of James Byrd, Jr., a 49-year-old African American man who had been dragged behind a pickup truck by three members of the Ku Klux Klan . The New Black Panther Party also became known to the public through the Million Youth March it first organized in New York in 1998. Trending Topics Opium Wars Many activities of the New Black Panther Party clearly replicated those of the original Black Panther Party. At the same time, however, the New Black Panther Party embraced a staunchly cultural nationalist orientation, leading some former Black Panther Party leaders to denounce it for using the Black Panther Party name and for appropriating its legacy . The Southern Poverty Law Center also emphasized the difference between the two groups and labeled the New Black Panther Party a racist and anti-Semitic hate group.

Members of the New Black Panther Party, however, were unapologetic and summarily rejected such condemnation, contending that they only took up the struggle for social justice and freedom that the original Black Panther Party had failed to sustain. More about Black Panther Party 11 References found in Britannica Articles Assorted References FBI — Black Panther Party Vault Home • Black Panther Party Info Black Panther Party The Black Panther Party (BPP) is a black extremist organization founded in Oakland, California in 1966. It advocated the use of violence and guerilla tactics to overthrow the U.S. government. In 1969, the FBI’s Charlotte Field Office opened an investigative file on the BPP to track its militant activities, income, and expenses. This release consists of Charlotte's file on BPP activities from 1969 to 1976. Seattle Black Panther Party History and Memory Project [Video Oral Histories] [Photos] [News Coverage] [Congressional Hearings] [BPP Bulletin] [Map] [Chapter history] The Black Panther Party for Self Defense established its Seattle chapter in the spring of 1968. It was one of the first authorized chapters outside of California.

The Seattle chapter also lasted longer than most, surviving until 1978. Although the membership was never large, the organization made a major impact on the region. With their black berets and leather jackets and their commitment to armed self defense, the Panthers became role models to some while scaring others. Either way, the organization showed Seattle that its struggles for racial justice had moved beyond persuasion and nonviolent protest. This page introduces the Seattle Black Panther Party -- History and Memory Project. The unit comprises the most extensive online collection of materials for any chapter of the Black Panther Party, including the Oakland chapter. The links above and below lead to more than a dozen oral histories , scores of photographs , BPP Bulletins , more than 100 newspaper articles , and the complete transcript and exhibits from the 1970 Congressional Hearings into the activities of the chapter. A slide show and a three-part essay tell the story of the BPP Seattle chapter. * * * Huey Newton and Bobby Seale founded the Black Panther Party in Oakland, California, in late 1966.

The rest of the world learned about the organization the following year, after a contingent of heavily armed Panthers marched onto the floor of the California legislature protesting a bill to ban firearms in public places. Weapons and armed self defense were key elements in the Panther program, one part of which focused on protecting black communities from brutal policing practices. Calling police officers "pigs," and following them as they patrolled black neighborhoods, the Panthers were soon involved in deadly gun battles with police in Oakland and later in other cities. The uninformed thought of the Panthers as Black Nationalists, but the Party was actually committed to revolutionary internationalism, taking some of its program from the "Little Red Book" (Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse Tung) and identifying with third-world revolutionary movements. The Washington state chapter of the BPP was established in April, 1968 after Aaron Dixon, Elmer Dixon, Anthony Ware, Gary Owens and several other future Panthers attended a memorial service in San Francisco for 17 year-old Bobby Hutton. Hutton had been killed by Oakland police in a shootout in which Party leader Eldridge Cleaver was also wounded.

While in Oakland, the Seattle youth met BPP Chairman Bobby Seale, whose subsequent visit to Seattle marked the beginning of the Washington State chapter. The history of the Washington State chapter can be followed in the accompanying pages. Janet Jones is the coordinator of this special section and conducted all of the interviews. Alexander Morrow and Nathan Roberts served as Associate Editors. We wish to thank members of the BPP Legacy Committee for sharing stories, photographs, and documents. Thanks also to the Seattle Times, Seattle Post Intelligencer, Seattle Medium, University of Washington Daily, and Afro American Journal, and Seattle Magazine for the articles and photographs that appear on the News Coverage page. Slide show: Black Panthers Tell Their Stories Video Oral Histories : Short biographies and streaming video excerpts of interviews with BPP veterans Aaron Dixon, Elmer Dixon, Michael Dixon, Mark Cook, Jake Fiddler, Leon Hobbs, Ron Johnson, Michael Murray, Garry Owens, Mike Tagawa, Bobby White, Shamseddin Williams, Kenyatto Amen-Allah. Plus related interviews with Larry Gossett and Wes Uhlman.

Photographs : From the Washington State Archives; Eugene Tagawa collection; Aaron Dixon collection; Fred Lonidier collection, and the Musuem of History and Industry. News Coverage: We have digitized more than 100 newspaper articles that appeared between 1968 and 1979, making it possible to follow the news coverage that surrounded the BPP. Congressional Hearings: In 1970, Congress launched a full-scale investigation of the Black Panther Party. One set of hearings focused on the Seattle chapter. Here you can read the testimony and view the exhibits collected by Congressional investigators. Included are photographs of members and buildings that served as Party offices or breakfast program centers, and testimony from police officers and a secret undercover witness. Chapter History: This three part essay by Kurt Schaefer explores the first three years of the Seattle chapter of the Black Panther Party from its founding by Black Student Union members in 1968 through the 1970 crisis negotiated by Mayor Wes Uhlman. Map: Locations of offices, breakfast programs, and key events, with google street views of the sites today. Offices: 1970 photos of offices, breakfast program locations.

Mugshots: Police booking photographs of suspected Panthers. Documents: The five issues of the Seattle Party Bulletin. Links: Online links to information about the Seattle chapter, other chapters, and the Black Panther Party headquarters. For Teachers : a lesson plan and materials suitable for high school classes. Mirroring the incident in Sacramento that had brought so much attention in 1967, on February 28, 1969, a group of Seattle Panthers led by Lt. Elmer Dixon gathered on the steps of the Capitol in Olympia to protest a bill that would make it a crime to exhibit firearms "in a manner manifesting an intent to intimidate others.ï¿½ In contrast to the California demonstration, they did not enter the building and they were not arrested. (Photo: Washington State Archives) From the moment the Seattle chapter was formed, it was a magnet for media attention. Click the cover to read Seattle Magazine's October, 1968 article about Aaron Dixon and the Panthers (in pdf format). We also have more than 100 newspaper articles from the period. The Black Panthers - History Learning Site The Black Panthers Citation: C N Trueman "The Black Panthers" historylearningsite.co.uk.

The History Learning Site, 27 Mar 2015. 16 Aug 2016. The Black Panthers The Black Panthers were formed in California in 1966 and they played a short but important part in the civil rights movement. The Black Panthers believed that the non-violent campaign of Martin Luther King had failed and any promised changes to their lifestyle via the ‘traditional’ civil rights movement, would take too long to be implemented or simply not introduced. The language of the Black Panthers was violent as was their public stance. The two founders of the Black Panther Party were Huey Percy Newton and Bobby Seale. They preached for a “revolutionary war” but though they considered themselves an African-American party, they were willing to speak out for all those who were oppressed from whatever minority group. They were willing to use violence to get what they wanted. The Black Panther Party (BPP) had four desires : equality in education, housing, employment and civil rights. It had a 10 Point Plan to get its desired goals. The ten points of the party platform were: 1) “Freedom; the power to determine the destiny of the Black and oppressed communities. 2) Full Employment; give every person employment or guaranteed income.

3) End to robbery of Black communities; the overdue debt of forty acres and two mules as promised to ex-slaves during the reconstruction period following the emancipation of slavery. 4) Decent housing fit for the shelter of human beings; the land should be made into cooperatives so that the people can build. 5) Education for the people; that teaches the true history of Blacks and their role in present day society. 6) Free health care; health facilities which will develop preventive medical programs. 7) End to police brutality and murder of Black people and other people of color and oppressed people. 8) End to all wars of aggression; the various conflicts which exist stem directly from the United States ruling circle. 9) Freedom for all political prisoners; trials by juries that represent our peers. 10) Land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice, peace and community control of modern industry.” The call for a revolutionary war against authority at the time of the Vietnam War , alerted the FBI to the Black Panther’s activities. Whatever happened, the FBI was successful in destroying the Black Panther’s movement.

Those who supported the BPP claim that the FBI used dirty tactics such as forging letters to provoke conflict between the BPP’s leaders; organising the murders of BPP leaders such as John Huggins; initiating a “Black Propaganda” campaign to convince the public that the BPP was a threat to national security; using infiltrators to commit crimes that could be blamed on the BPP so that leaders could be arrested and writing threatening letters to jurors during trials so that the BPP would be blamed for attempting to pervert the course of justice. Supporters of the BPP claimed that this last tactic was used with success at the trial of the “Chicago Eight” whereby the jury, apparently angered at being intimidated by the BPP, found the eight members of the BPP guilty. None of the above tactics have ever been proved or admitted to by the FBI. In California, the party leader of Oakland, David Hilliard, claimed that the BPP was at the top of the FBI’s most wanted list.

Hilliard also claimed that the then governor of California, Ronald Reagan, constantly vilified the BPP: “This caused a stigma to be placed upon the Black Panther Party as Pied Pipers of cultural and social revolution characterising us as the essence of violence, chaos and evil.” The head of the FBI, Edgar J Hoover, called the BPP “the greatest threat to the internal security of the country.” Hoover ordered field operatives of the FBI to introduce measures that would cripple the BPP. Using infiltrators (one of these, William O’Neal, became Chief of Security for the BPP), the FBI knew of all the movements etc of BPP leaders. FBI raids in BPP heartlands – Chicago and Los Angeles – that led to the arrest of regional leaders, resulted in the collapse of the movement. To view the BPP as a purely revolutionary and violent movement is wrong. In areas of support the BPP created a Free Food Program to feed those who could not afford to do so for themselves; Free Medical Research Health Clinics to provide basic health care for those who could not afford it and an Intercommunal Youth Band to give community pride to the movement.

In a book of his essays called “To Die for the People”, Huey Newton wrote that these were exactly what the African-American community wanted and that the BPP was providing its own people with something the government was not. Such community projects have survived in other guises, but after the demise of the BPP their lost their drive for a number of years. Was there much support for the BPP? Were they ‘Public Enemy Number One’ as Hoover claimed? In 1966, a survey carried out in America showed that less than 5% of African-Americans approved of groups such as the BPP. 60% were positively hostile to such groups. But were these survey results slanted in such a manner as to tarnish the name of the Black Panthers at an early stage in its existence especially as the head of the FBI, Hoover, was known to be very against the movement? In areas such as Oakland and parts of San Francisco and South San Francisco where the BPP claimed to feed nearly 200,000 people, support would have been a lot higher.

Question: In which year was the Black Panther Party founded?
Answer: 1966